Hi May22, funny coincidence, that's my bday. Thanks for the suggestions, very helpful.
Originally Posted by may22
A few quick thoughts from me.
Three. From what I have read, she's still in the house-- is that true? What are the sleeping arrangements? She's just been talking about wanting to talk to someone about starting the separation? If I have that all right, I'd take a deep breath and RELAX, man. Let her do the legwork on finding a place and moving out. You don't need to facilitate any of this. WASs are lazy (unless there is an AP pushing them, and even so those ones can STILL be pretty lazy about actually doing any work to get a D). The vets used to say she has given you a gift... the gift of TIME. You have this. Don't squander it.
Yes, we're still in the house together. We still sleep in the same bed, king size so there is more than enough space not to touch. Yes, initially she didn't want to talk to someone, but now she wants to. However I believe from the brief convo's on the matter, it'll probably be more of a seperation coach than couples counseling. She says she's already called and that we should have an appointment soon, however that was 10 days ago and nothing yet. I'm following the DB technique of not initiating the discussion, so I didn't ask for more detail. The deadline we set initially for seperation was January, so I have 2 months left under the same roof. Clocks ticking, like it isn't already stressful enough. I hope you're right, and she'll get lazy. We decided to start by keeping the kids at our house and we'd alternate in/out.
Like I said earlier, her moods fluctuate quite a bit depending the day, situation and activity. I stopped initiating any kind of plans, calls or text messages unless its absolutely required for a specific reason and I keep them short. She's been pretty regular in sending texts for various reasons, sometimes related to plans or the girls or random stuff. On Thursday she invited me to her parents for dinner with the kids, I turned her down to give her space. They live 10 minutes away, so it'd only be a 2 hour thing max. As I finished kissing my daughters at the car, W blew me a kiss as she pulled away. She hadn't shown any affection in 6 weeks, except for one afternoon 2 weeks ago, that she got a little drunk at our friends house and she was attached to me on a few occasions and I just ignored it. We've been having a good week, no serious discussions or arguements. I figured the blown kiss was just an old reflex, but we never blew kisses in the years together, it was always good-byes with a real kiss and squeeze, so I did find that strange. I hoped it was a good sign of things going in a better direction, but tried not to make too much of it. Wednesday night we went over to another couples house for dinner with the kids, Wife's suggestion. She said it'd be fun to break the routine and do something out of the house. While W was playing with both sets of kids and their cat after dinner, our friends asked me if things were going better since we were out together, I answered I have no idea what is going through her mind half the time so I'm just going with it.
Originally Posted by may22
Four. DBing isn't aloofness or stonewalling. It is focusing on you and becoming your best self. Not pursuing does not equal stonewalling. You can be pleasant and kind and polite, just not trying to rope her into conversations about stopping her medications and staying married. Do your own thing. GAL. Focus on your kids and being the best dad you can possibly be. Don't start R talks, but if she brings it up, listen and validate and DON'T ARGUE.
I understand this better now, trying my best to stick to it, but I do have weak moments.
Originally Posted by may22
Five. As you focus on yourself-- can you tell us behaviors that you have that may have contributed to the failure of your M? Take the SSRIs and her depression episodes completely out of the picture and just focus on YOU. I'd be interested to know if you have any 180s you'd like to make, for yourself.
This is what I find really difficult. It's difficult to take the SSRI's out of the picture, my failures were directly linked to them. I became paranoid, anxious and resentful. See things were amazing for about a year, right after the 2nd postpartum passed until she started the antidepressants. I know I need to stop focusing on that, however it's linked because that's where I fell off the rails. I noticed the change around Nov/Dec last year, I started talking to friends with experience with them, my Dr and a therapist through a work program to get some help in understanding her recovery from postpartum and previous depressions. My goal there was to be more helpful and understand what was going on. The more I read and talked the more paranoid and anxious I got, I saw the changes in her as well as her becoming more distant. I also gave her a hard time because she was becoming a slob around the house, we're both neat freaks and always had the house tidy even with the two kids (i'm talking 50/50, before someone jumps down my throat and accuses me of needing my wife to clean) she went from OCD (not really, but we'd joke about it) to not having a care in the world, one random example that's not too extreme but major for her, is her walking from the kitchen to the living area and spilling 1/3 of her coffee on the floor, seeing it, saying oops, and just walking away from it, I was like "no way, she would never!". My expirament was to leave it there to see what would happen and if she'd clean it later, sure enough, 3 days and the dried stain was still there until I cleaned it up, it's not that I mind, we always shared duties and cleaned up after each other, we share all house duties. That's just one random example, but this seemed to be the new her, its obviously less stressful way of living, which is a good thing, but still kinda shocking when you see a change like that happen. I started cleaning and picking up after her constantly, socks, trash, sometimes I'd point things out to her and she just didn't care or acknowledge.
I was the deer in the headlights, I saw the car coming and couldn't get out of the way. I hit a wall in Febuary, got even more anxious about her other behavioral changes in the spring, we started to have more discussions about it which didn't go very well, I realized I was spiralling deeper around June and I told her I needed help and had to figure out what was happening to me. Her parents also started expressing their concerns about my W around spring. I just didn't know what to do or how to approach it. I wasn't in a good place and I had no idea who my W was. She got more distant, kinda like she had her own things and mental challenges that she couldn't deal with mine as well. Late summer, things started to get even more wierd, she'd be even more distant, I'd get more confused, look up more stuff about the AD's and get more paranoid, I could see D-day coming but couldn't snap out of it. I was not myself anymore at home, work or with friends, I was consumed in trying to figure this out and fix it. She dropped the bomb mid-sept, I told her I needed time to deal with it. I was a zombie the first 3-4 weeks. The next 3 weeks absolutely flew by, which makes me panic even more.
So all that to say, I lost myself, I became resentful, I got paranoid and anxious and my resentment started to show, I close up when I keep things in, and when I do they all come out at once which is hard on the person receiving it.
It's getting late, so I'll do this quick, I haven't quite finished reading up on the 180s.
Start working out again, I'm still fit, but just don't work out as regularly. See friends and/or coworkers twice a week. See my family regularly. Give her space. Get my energy level back up. Get back my good mood and make W laugh again (does this one make sense? Or should I leave her totally out of it?)
